How to Know if a Song is Good

[songbird52]

Obviously, we can't know, because good or not depends on a person's musical preferences. However, I think I figured out a way to know if a song is good, or not, for me. I have been using this method on the songs I write. If nothing else, I need to know if I like a song I wrote myself. Because if I don't like my own song, how can I expect anyone else to like it?

 

I try to practice most of my songs every day, if possible. I noticed there were some I did not like to sing and play. I didn't know why, didn't think about it too much. But then I started to think about it. Why do I dislike, or even hate, a particular song? 

 

And I noticed that the songs I don't like had "bugs." Sometimes wording, but more often melody. Even though I wrote the song myself, I had written sections of melody (or words) that do not feel right to me. It was because I was just trying to get the song finished quickly.

 

So I marked the songs on my list that have bugs (I used to be a software developer, so to me errors are bugs). And every time I practice one of those songs, I try to fix one or more of the bugs. I only spend very little time on this for each song, because it can very quickly lead to frustration and writer's block.

 

As a result of doing this every day, some of my songs have improved, even to the point where I like them and don't hate singing them. I am trying to get all my songs to that point.

 

And I also started doing the same thing with my in progress songs. Just spend a little time every day trying to iron out the bugs. As a result, I have finished some more songs that I actually like.

 

Of course there are songs that don't need any revising. Some do, and some don't. You have to be in the right state of mind while writing a song, and sometimes with luck you are in that state long enough to get a whole song written. But very often, that state comes and goes and doesn't last through the writing of a whole song. In that case, I am using this method, which kind of relates back to my coding days.

 

 

 

[Driftwood]

Sometimes the bugs or mistakes are what suddenly makes the song come to life. What would have happened if Paul had changed the line "the movement you need is on your shoulder"? John Lennon told him that was the best line in the lyric. Okay, that was a stark example..carry on.

[songbird52]

11 hours ago, Driftwood said:

Sometimes the bugs or mistakes are what suddenly makes the song come to life. What would have happened if Paul had changed the line "the movement you need is on your shoulder"? John Lennon told him that was the best line in the lyric. Okay, that was a stark example..carry on.

 

That is true. However, I think I meant something different by bugs. I don't actually mean mistakes. Mostly I mean areas of melody that I don't like to sing. And the more times I sing them, the more I dislike them.

 

If I sing a song every day and don't get tired of it, I think that means I like it, and that from my perspective it's a good song.

 

This is a way to hopefully get around the natural bias we have that makes us like our own songs. We want the songs we write to be good songs, so it's hard to be objective.

 

This helps me to be more objective. I have revised some of my songs that I didn't like to the point where I do like them, and I do like to sing them.

 

That doesn't mean other people will like them, of course, because people don't all like the same things. However, if I like a song I know that SOME people will like it, since my taste in music is not unique.

 

 

[Rudi]

On 12/30/2018 at 8:15 PM, songbird52 said:

Obviously, we can't know, because good or not depends on a person's musical preferences.

 

 

I think we can know. I know. Preference doesn't matter. Only the inability to appreciate a genre can rule our opinion out. But we dont write in those genres ourselves.

 

I have confidence in assessing how good a song is. A good song speaks directly & bypasses technical details. 

 

 

 

 

BTW, I have no intention of critiquing on demand or outside of the designated areas.

[songbird52]

57 minutes ago, Rudi said:

 

I think we can know. I know. Preference doesn't matter. Only the inability to appreciate a genre can rule our opinion out. But we dont write in those genres ourselves.

 

I have confidence in assessing how good a song is. A good song speaks directly & bypasses technical details. 

 

 

 

 

BTW, I have no intention of critiquing on demand or outside of the designated areas.

 

I have no way to know what you mean by "speaks directly." That has to be something you feel personally, not something objective.

 

I was trying to explain a way of getting around the fact that our judgements of songs, especially the ones we wrote ourselves, can't be objective.

 

And I certainly would never ask for a critique outside the designated areas!

[Rudi]

On 1/1/2019 at 5:43 PM, songbird52 said:

 

I have no way to know what you mean by "speaks directly." That has to be something you feel personally, not something objective. 

 

I was trying to explain a way of getting around the fact that our judgements of songs, especially the ones we wrote ourselves, can't be objective.

 

 

 

If we we are going to assess any music at all, it has to be subjectively. Who wrote and played it shouldn't be that critical to the process.

[songbird52]

18 hours ago, Rudi said:

 

If we we are going to assess any music at all, it has to be subjectively. Who wrote and played it shouldn't be that critical to the process.

 

I was talking about how to assess our own songs, before anyone else hears them. That has to be the first step. 

[MikeRobinson]

9 hours ago, songbird52 said:

 

I was talking about how to assess our own songs, before anyone else hears them. That has to be the first step. 

 

But that can also very easily be "where a good song dies."   When you work on a piece of music for a long time, you don't really hear it anymore.  You need to let other, trusted people hear it – fairly early on.  You're too close to it, yourself.

 

But also – keep drafts.  Don't actually throw that song (file) away.  Shove it into a "dust-bin" folder that you never empty.  If you revise a song, make it "revision #2" but don't delete "revision #1."  (Most DAWs support this idea directly.)  Perhaps "that idea that didn't pan out" is another song.  "That lick that didn't belong in this song" is the next number-one hit.

 

And as I've said elsewhere – keep that tape-machine running all the time.

[pupkin]

I force myself to listen to it the morning after, usually when I'm at my most critical. I also play it on acoustic guitar to see if it can live there on its own, which is typically indicative of a strong song.

[Ed Driscoll]

I think you can feel it internally when a song works. You can compare it to material you've material already written to see if there's any musical growth or progress. But even when a song doesn't work, it's always worth studying what went wrong to avoid doing it again. Or steal the bits that work and combine them with something new to avoid having to start from zero.

[songbird52]

It's true that we need to get opinions from others. Very hard to be objective about our own work, because we so much want to like songs we put a lot of effort into.

 

But I do think the approach I described here has been helping me. I was being obsessive about writing songs for a while, trying to get as many done as possible. I was not as concerned as I should have been about quality.

 

Then I got away from songwriting for a couple of weeks because I had to go somewhere. I brought a guitar and I practiced my songs every day, but being away from my normal environment it was too hard to write new songs.

 

When I got back, I noticed that some of the songs I had been working on before I left really sucked. And that made me realize I needed better quality control.

 

So now I have been going back and re--writing songs I had thought were done. And spending more time on new songs. I don't let anyone hear them until I feel they are ok.

 

 

 

 

[MikeRobinson]

Songbird, as a lifetime(!) software developer myself, I would rather-strictly caution you not to be too hard on yourself.  

 

On the one hand, "music-making," much like "software development," is a highly-technical skill (if you want it to be ...) that most people encounter every day but really don't understand.  It's tempting to presume that "it's the same analogy."

 

However, in this context, one very-important thing is missing:  "the computer."  Here we are not coaxing "an impossibly-advanced morsel of sand" to obey our instructions: we are merely using it as a tool.  (W00-H00!!  Logic Pro X is somebody else's headache!!  I can write trouble-tickets and I never have to answer them!!)  

 

Here, we are people, trying to communicate in an artistic way to other people, while using computer technology as a tool to our best advantage.  The "absolutes" that both of us are entirely used-to ... don't exist here, and, don't apply.  They aren't "bugs," anymore.  The people with whom we strive to communicate don't particularly care if our musical tool is a computer, a string, a surface that we strike, or a tube.

 

Therefore – "give yourself some room."  If you let yourself hang upon the question, "is this 'good?'", the answer will probably always be, "no."  But it's the wrong answer, at least if you jump to it.

[songbird52]

Hi Mike,

 

I was a software developer for a long time also, before I retired. I see similarities between the two kinds of writing. Both are sort of like doing puzzles, and both provide that sense of accomplishment when you finally get the puzzle done.

 

But you are pointing out the difference -- with software the program has to run and perform the intended function, or it's worthless. And with songs, we don't have that definite criteria. We can't say my song is no good, it doesn't run, or it doesn't perform the intended task.

 

Right, I agree. However, I do think I can determine when there are aesthetic bugs. It's harder than with software, because it's all based on intuitive judgements, rather than logic.

 

But I can't prove this, and can barely understand it myself. I just think, as I have been spending most of my time on songwriting, that I am getting some sense of right vs wrong. And my quality control has been improving, I think, I hope. Can't really be sure with this stuff that is beyond logic.